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The Godfather of the LA Club Scene
Josh Richman is a Los Angeles legend. His clubs have defined the LA party scene: Grand Ville, Teddys, Les Deux, Greystone Manor. He is a founding member of the Alliance, an event promoting agency that organizes A-List parties for companies like Sony, Cadillac and Heineken. He’s thrown bashes for the Super Bowl, the Grammys, the Oscars. With his ever-present fedora and eight-ball topped cane, his success is built on a vibrant personality and a pull to the people “that matter.”
Josh and I grew up across the street from each other in a Studio City suburb. We were both latch key kids who played sports year round until the streetlights came on. We shared the surreal experience of seeing our local ice cream man suffer a heart attack and crash his truck into a fire hydrant. We hiked the auto grave yard beneath Mulholland Drive in search of snakes and scorpions. We raised hell together, breaking into people’s homes to rearrange furniture or change answering machine messages.
Josh was always a step ahead of me. While I listened to Elton John, he listened to T-Rex. While I watched Beanie & Cecil, Josh viewed Fritz The Cat. His family was the first in the neighborhood to own a Sony Betamax player and first to subscribe to the Z Channel. He somehow obtained the infamous Faces of Death video when he was just twelve years old. We went to Rams, Dodgers and Lakers games together and spent nights watching movies like Freebie and the Bean and California Suite.
At age five, Josh began recording radio commercials with his father Don Richman, a legendary radio producer and television writer. After his parents’ divorce, Josh spent weekends with his father who lived off the Sunset Strip. He spent formative days at Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop and Mel’s Diner. His older sister Heidi designed wardrobe for rock bands like the Cure, Bauhaus and Kommunity FK. Josh immersed himself in the music scene befriending musicians like Peter Murphy, Robert Smith, Flea & Anthony Kiedis and Perry Farrell.
As a teenager, Josh parlayed his radio experience into an acting career. He appeared in The River’s Edge, Heathers and Natural Born Killers. After both his parents died before he was twenty-one, his surrogate family became confidantes like Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr. and…
